St. George

St. George was so much fun this last weekend! We got to hang out with family we don't get to see ever and ride dirt bikes and 4-wheelers!

I kinda learned how to ride a dirt bike... it was really a tiny Honda 70 that doesn't even have a clutch and only for about 20 minutes BUT it was my first time on one and it still counts!

We also went out on Bree's dad's 4-wheelers and it was so much fun! I have only driven 4-wheelers like 2 other times and it was just on flat dirt roads but this was so much more fun. We went out to a place just outside Washington, Utah a little north of St. George where people go jeeping sometimes and there are tons of fun little trails. We were flying over hills and bumps and bouncing around (now, really my version of "flying over bumps" is a lot slower than Riley's or Bree's but I was having a blast). Bree is a freaking crazy girl when she gets out there on the 4-wheelers! It was so funny to watcher get out there and just have fun.

It was definitely a blast and a greatly needed vacation.

Fall and Hollidays!

I love when the leaves start to turn colors. It's like saying "the holidays are coming". And today it even snowed just a little bit.

I love the holidays. Mostly just spending time with my family and doing traditions that we've been doing since I was little. Like making my great grandma's amazing chocolate pie recipe for Thanksgiving, or having our Christmas eve program and then putting on our Christmas PJ's and watching Muppet Christmas Carol while all of us kids sleep in the same room.

This year we are also going to a family reunion in Saint George with Riley's dad's family the weekend after Thanksgiving. I'm so excited! We are going to be riding 4-wheelers and dirt bikes and Riley said he might be able to teach me how to drive a dirt bike. I'm also hoping Riley's cousins Bree, Alauna and Karly will be there. I've been able to hang out with them lately and get to know them better and I am so excited to spend more time with them.

So Big....

I can't believe that next week my sister-in-law Salest turns five and my oldest niece Camryn turns four.

 I still remember when both of them were born and now they are getting so big! They both love having me do their nails and coming swimming in my pool and Salest will start kindergarten next year! They grow up so fast I have to try not to miss it.

Rain......

Just when you think it's warming up outside, mother nature plays a cruel trick and sends more rain and, can you believe it, snow. I have got the worst spring fever lately! I want to be able to rollerblade and go on bikerides and have picknicks and just enjoy the sun!

Moab!!

Easter weekend Riley, his friend Dallin, my sister Kelly and I all went down to Moab for Jeep Safari. I had never been to Moab or been jeeping so I was so excited.

We found a pretty cool camp site off the high way just south of the city and the Whole In The Rock store. It had a fire pit and a make shift metal table we used to cook our burgers over charcoal and two decently flat spots for our tents.

Riley got a good fire going.

And then, being the pyro he is, poured lighter fluid on it and mad it bigger.

We spent most of the rest of the night taking crazy picture and just having fun.

In the morning before breakfast we went on a hike behind our camp.

This was the view from the top.

I love hiking.

This was where we hiked to.

This is where we started from

Then we loaded up the jeep to head out and go jeeping!

We went up some cool hills and off some crazy drop offs. On the trail Hell's Revenge we drove up something called Tip Over Challange and I thought Kelly was going to pee her pants when we tipped a little sideways. After trying three times we made it up Tip Over Challange and the guy that was spotting for us told us we get the award for best wheelie when at one point our from tire was about four feet off the ground. He also said it would have been easier if we had lockers. Dallin informed the guy that we had a back locker only to have Riley notice as we drove away that the locker had not been engaged the whole time.

After a particularly rough hill we were hearing some funny noises coming from the front passenger side wheel well. We pulled up on this hill to stop and check it out.

Turns out the bolt had come out of the shock. We didn't have another bolt so we ended up with a Dallin and Riley fix. They shoved a screwdriver in it.

Later that day though on a long trail that took us closer to Monticello, where Dallin's parents live, we went up another steep rocky trail and the screwdriver came out, the spring and bump stop came off and the sway bar broke. We had to flex it up on a rock to get in to put the spring back on.

We put the spring back in place and took the bolt off the broken sway bar to fix the shock. At least it would drive that way.

If you look close at the center this picture you can see a little bit of the dirt road below that we drove up.

The last trail that we took to Monticello was suppose to be a couple hour drive, at least that's what his sister that went on it with us said. Six hours after starting the trail we finally found the end and a highway. It was fun but my butt was really going dead. We were all ready to come home Sunday night.

But I'm totally up for going to Moab and jeeping again.

Our Own Place

We have pretty much been unpacked for the last week. It is so nice! I am no longer getting up and going to work then coming home and unpacking till I go to bed. I can finally relax here and it feels more like "our place".

I now have a place where I can have girls night with movies, games, facials and pedicures without having to worry about keeping my family up because people are here too late or because we are a little loud.

I can decorate how I want, put my shells up everywhere and put pictures all over the walls (I wish I could paint the walls but I guess I can't have everything at once).

After living with my parents my whole life, including eight straight months of married life, I am finally on my own (well, with my older sister and husband) and I'm loving it!

Moving....

I hate moving. I would love to find the house I want to live in forever and stay there. My family always moved around when I was groving up. I am 22 years old and have never lived in the same house for more than five years. Counting temproary places we lived (around six months or more) I have lived in ten different places. I thought it was so crazy when I found out my friend Rachel had lived in the same house her whole life.

Now it's time to move again. Riley and I have lived in my parent's basement since we got married because we were both laid off from our jobs within a month and a half of our wedding. Now my parents are moving and so we have to move too.

With three car payments and me not working full time, we can't afford our own place just yet. So we have decided to find a place with my sister and her little girl Lexi.

Finding a place to rent has been hard because I have a cat, Reggi (one of the fattest most lazy cats you will ever meet), and my sister has a cat (who thinks he's a dog and who we're pretty sure is mentally handycapped) and a dog (that is one of the most annoyingand needy dogs I have ever seen). Most places don't allow animals or charge an arm and a leg extra to keep them there.

Friday afternoon, however, my sister and I went to look at some apartments in south Orem. They do allow pets with not too much extra a month and it's a pretty decent place. There are three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an open kitchen in the apartment as well as a pool table, a playground for Lexi, a small work out room and an indoor heated pool. Can you say pool party at my house?

Riley and I are also taking our projector and wii so we can have awsome movie/game nights.

I think it will be good for what we need right now.

Baby Quilt

Now that I have a new little niece my mom, sisters and I wanted to make something for her. We decided on a baby quilt and the day Addy was born we went to the fabric store. Friday night my sister Kelly came down from Salt Lake to spend the night and work on the quilt. We set it up so we could each do a couple squares with the coordinating fabric we picked out that matches Addy's bedroom.


We were taking dinner to my brother and sister-in-laws house Sunday night and wanted to have it finished. It always happens, however, that things end up taking much longer than expected. We thought we would have it finished by Saturday afternoon. Well, we worked on it Friday night and through Saturday. My mom and I were up until three am Sunday and got everything but the binding for the edge done.

My mom made the centered square with Adalyn appliquéd on it and two other squares. I made two of my own squares and cut out and sewed my sister Elise's square because she ran out of time. My grandma Christensen came over and did a square. Kelly appliquéd bugs onto three squares and my youngest sister Caroline appliquéd a flower onto hers.

Sunday afternoon I hurried and sewed the binding on just in time to leave for their house. I folded it up, put it in a bright green gift bag and put white tissue paper in the top.

My sister-in-law, Tressa, and Addy's big sister Camryn loved the quilt. Cam played in it most of the night. It turned out so cute and it was fun to get everyone together to do it. Maybe we will have to make one for every new baby in the family.

My New Niece!!

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 my new niece was born.

We knew it was going to happen that day because they scheduled my sister-in-law, Tressa, to be induced. I didn't have to work again so about 12:30 I headed down to the hospital. The nice thing was they chose to have the baby at Orem Community Hospital which is where my mom works. I got there about one o'clock in the afternoon and just a few minutes later my brother called my mom and said the baby had been born. I called my dad, my sisters Kelly and Elise, my brother-in-law Greg and my husband to tell them the good news. No one answered.

My mom and I waited a few minutes then headed down to Mom and Baby to see the new addition.

They named their new baby Adalyne, Addy for short. She weighed 7 lbs and 11 oz and was 20 inches long.

We could only see her through the nursery windows for the first couple hours. The nurse said she was just having trouble opening her lungs all the way but did say she is stubborn. My brother, Cory, then told her she was definitely her mom's child. Both Tressa and their first little girl Camryn are very stubborn. Not too long later Addy was screaming pretty good and we knew she'd gotten those lungs open.

My mom and I went and got lunch in the cafeteria (despite what they say about hospital food it really is pretty good, and cheap) then we headed back to where my mom works in Same Day Surgery and I waited till she got off work at three. After she clocked out it was back down to see Addy. This time we got to hold her and really see her. She looks so much like her sister Camryn did.

Thursday I met my mom again about lunch time. My Grandma and Grandpa Adams were driving down from Ogden to see their new granddaughter and eat lunch with us. After my dad got there we went to Cory and Tressa's room and met my grandparents and my Aunt Lori there. My Grandma loves new grandchildren. They now have five kids (all married), 19 grandchildren (four of them married) and three great grandchildren (none married becuase the oldest is three).

We got a family picture with the new baby, Tressa, Cory and of course the grinning big sis Camryn.

I hung out with my mom again till she got off work and made bows for my cute little nieces. Then again it was back to see Addy before we left to go home.


I got to hold her a lot this time because it was only my mom and I there. Addy didn't look quite as mad to be out of mom's stomach today but she still wasn't super fond of bright lights.



I love having little nieces. I got to nanny for Camryn from when she was three months old till she was a year and a half and I'm still her favorite Auntie. I hope I get to be as close with my other two nieces.

A Date at Cabela's

When you have Friday and Monday off and don't work Saturday or Sunday you have a nice four day weekend. But you're broke and your clutch in your car is going out you're at home for the whole four days and it get's pretty boring. So, after my almost four days straight at home Riley and I decided we needed to get out.

Being broke limits your options of things to do though, so, we grabbed a roll of quarters out of our coin jar and drove down to Cabela's. I had to comment to Riley on our way in that being excited to hang out at Cabela's is pretty pathetic. Riley's reply to that was, "Yeah, it makes me feel like I'm from Lehi." I had to laugh because it's totally true!

We walked up to the second floor and over to the fun shooting game and found out the token machine only takes bills. After visiting pretty much every register in the store to get our quarters changed for dollar bills we picked up the laser guns and played the shooting game till we were completely out of our $10 of tokens (although with Riley and I it only took about 20 minutes max).

If someone could enlighten me as to how I got a high score of 210 when you get 20 shots and each target you hit gives you 10 points I would really appreciate it.

After that we walked to the fudge counter and sampled a couple flavors untill Riley told me to pick the one I wanted. I got orange and he got rocky road. With fudge in hand we walked downstairs and looked through the room with the large taxadermy animals.

It was only about an hour long date but it got me out of the house and I thought it was really fun.

Going to the Aquarium

Last Saturday my sister and I took her little girl Lexi (short for Alexis) to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy. I'd been there once before with Riley when we were engaged but my sister and niece had never been. Lexi loves the small fish in the tank at their house so we were pretty sure she liked it.

I love the open pool with the stingrays that you can touch. My sister Kelly chickened out and wouldn't touch them but I thought it was cool. They are so slimy except for their backbone and tail which is rough and bumpy.

Some of my favorite things we saw were the sea horses......

the jellyfish....

and the octopus.

I think Lexi's favorite part was the kids area in the ocean exhibit. There were tons of little tanks of fish built into the giant fake coral tunnels.

All of us had a lot of fun and Lexi even got a stuffed stingray souvenir. I think we'll definitely have to go back when they finish the penguin exhibit.

My New Blog

I was scanning through Facebook the other day seeing what everyone was up to and a friend posted "thinks YOU should get a blog". So this is my attempt. We'll see how well it goes and how often I post on it but I will try.